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S arah Gable leaned over her brother’s body, propped up on two plush pillows in one of Dartmouth’s many guest rooms, and patted his forehead with a damp rag.

At ‘Lord Wishford’s’ insistence, Lord Devon dispatched his own castle physician to her brother’s sickbed.

“It is a fortunate thing that you sent for me when you did,” the physician had said. “Another few moments and William would have surely perished with his brother.”

Sarah was grateful to Aria’s brother.

He had looked as lost and confused as Aria had appeared the night Will had first found her wandering the forest alone.

But Aria’s brother—who had told her his name was Connall, did not appear lost and confused for long.

In fact, he had gathered himself into a fearless prince with war in his eyes, which were several shades darker blue than his sister’s.

He was quite handsome, which did not surprise Sarah after knowing Aria Darling and watching her win the heart of the man Sarah loved.

Now, the marquess and Aria were gone, no doubt to Aria’s future, gone to Sarah forever. She’d lost her oldest brother and the man she’d loved her whole life all in the same day.

But Will still lived, thanks to the Duke of Wishford.

A smile crept over her lips at the memory of having to come up with a title that would protect him. The Duke of Wishford. She covered her smile with her fingers. Lord Devon did not know that there was no such place as Wishford.

“Everything will be alright, Brother,” she told Will softly while she wiped his head. She hoped he heard her. “Mother needs you, Will. Fight to wake up for her sake. And for mine. You are the righteous one among us.”

“Miss Gable?”

She turned to find Lord Wishford—Conn behind her. They hadn’t been able to talk before since Lord Devon had remained with them while Will was seen to.

“Yes, Your Grace—”

He shook his head and coal-black strands of hair fell over his eyes. “Connall, remember? Or Conn. My friends call me Conn.”

“Friends?” she asked quietly, moving away from her brother. “Am I your friend now?”

“Would you prefer to be my enemy?”

She remembered how easily he had disarmed Mr. Cavendish. How brave he was…or pretended to be in the face of the duke’s guards. She shook her head. “No.”

“How is he?” he asked, seemingly forgetting her and going to Will’s bedside. “You said he was the righteous one among you. How is he a righteous man?”

“He was shot trying to protect your sister. He would have given his life for her.”

Conn stared at Will while she spoke. Sarah imagined that he would question her next about his sister’s relationship with Will.

“Who was he trying to protect her from?”

An unexpected first question. She could lie and tell him Will was trying to protect her from Mr. Cavendish, but this man had saved her and he deserved to know the truth.

“Harry,” she told him honestly. “Mr. Cavendish shot Will for protecting her. He would have shot her next. He hated her too.”

He ground his teeth, clenching his jaw. A dimple flashed in his left cheek, beguiling her senseless if she wasn’t grieving Harry. “Why?” he asked.

“Because he and Harry hated the marquess with all their hearts and your sister made the marquess happy for the first time in over a decade.”

“I see,” he said quietly, lowering his chin to his chest. He moved away toward one of two chairs before the hearthfire. “How can any of this be real? Tell me when it’ll be over.”

She shook her head, rushing into the vacant chair opposite him. “It is real. Aria did not believe it either, but she came here from 2024 and—”

“You mean 2022,” he corrected.

“No. 2024. She mentioned it many times. She came from New York City 2024.”

Her brother sat in the chair with his face going pale. “What does any of this mean? You’re telling me Aria came here from 2024? Two years after I did?”

“Yes.”

He gave the laugh this story deserved. “Miss Gable, this is all very incredible. It can’t be real.” But he doubted the words falling from his tongue. Where had Aria gone? Through the wall and into their family living room?

“Are you telling me I am not real, Mr. Darling?”

He opened his mouth to answer her, but then snapped it shut. Perhaps reconsidering his reply. “I don’t know what I think, Miss Gable. Would you believe it if you were me?”

She did not want to say no, and disappoint him.

She liked the way they were speaking, sharing conversation together.

No one else had done so in too long. Grayson had spoken to her more in the last fortnight than he had since she was three.

Will was always kind, but was always fearful of her love for their family enemy.

Harry never spoke more than to bark orders at her.

“I am real, my lord.”

“Conn—” he began to correct but then laughed softly instead.

Sarah sat, beguiled by his shining smile, with pearly white teeth clamped together while his wide, dimpled grin filled the room.

She looked at her brother in bed to remember why there was an aching pit in her belly.

“My mother will no doubt prove it to you when she arrives to mourn over her son.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, his grin fading. “How will she be cared for?

“I do not know,” she sniffed.

“I should know this if I’m a traveling duke, but where exactly are we?”

“In Dartmouth—”

“In New Hampshire?”

She shook her head. “In Devonshire.”

“That’s why you all speak with British accents? But,” he continued when she nodded. “How did I get to England when I was in New York a half-hour ago?”

“You will have to ask Aria when you find her.”

He set his sapphire gaze on her again, and Sarah had a thought that he could likely scare the sun or the moon with a dark enough glare.

“So, if I came from the future,” he said, unblinking. “What year are we in right now?”

“It is 1795.”

He looked like he wanted to laugh right in her face. “1795. Okay. Right. So, I stepped over some kind of threshold and traveled two hundred and twenty-seven years into the past. I can’t believe it, sorry. I’m probably just dreaming.”

“Well, I have a hard time believing that you or your sister are from the future,” Sarah told him. “But I do believe it. You are too different to come from this time.”

He looked at her more intently. “Different how?”

She stared at her hands in her lap and then lifted one to her mouth to cough into it. “Well,” she began…or tried to begin. She could feel his eyes on her, strength and confidence bordering on arrogance issuing forth, along with something else. Curiosity? Humor?

“Miss Gable,” he said, interrupting her thoughts, “how am I different?”

She lifted her gaze to his. Did she have any other choice? There was no humor, only curiosity.

“You are bold and you do not fear the duke.”

“Why should I fear him? He’s a man just like me.”

Sarah coughed again and patted her chest. The duke was nothing like him in any way. Was he jesting? “He can have you thrown into prison. When no one from Wishford comes for you, he will figure out that you are not the duke of Wishford and he will have you executed.”

“He won’t kill me, Sarah.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“He needs me to find out where his son and his first wife are. He thinks they’re together, and he thinks I know how to find them.”

“What happens when you do not find them?”

“I will. I’ll keep him confident that I will.”

“You speak differently to me than any man here.”

“Hmm? How so?”

Was she truly blushing with her poor brother lying a few feet away? “Let me pour you a cup of wine,” she blurted and bounded to her feet.

“No!” He held up his palms as if he were warding off the devil itself.

He motioned for her to sit and she obeyed as if he truly were a duke.

“Have you tasted that stuff? It’s like paint thinner going down, which makes me think that maybe, somehow, some crazy way this is all real.

If it is, and I’m supposed to be a duke, what’s the right etiquette? ”

“In everything but one thing, you are already behaving like a duke. You have a natural ability to take control over circumstances. You—”

“What is the one thing?”

She drew in a resigning sigh. He certainly was the curious type. “It goes back to how you speak to me.”

“Yes?” he waited.

“You speak to me too much.”

He snorted.

“You tell me to call you by your Christian name.”

“I shouldn’t speak to you then?”

“No, Your Grace.”

His dimple deepened. “I don’t think I’ll be able to do that.”

Oddly, she wanted to smile and blush at his declaration. She did not want him to stop speaking to her. She liked the sound of his deep, breathy voice.

But he was supposed to be a duke. He should not be showing her any special attention.

He would get himself caught. But worse for her, was that he was a man from another time.

She was certain, like his sister, he would soon find his way home.

Her heart was already broken over the marquess.

She would not allow herself to get attached to Mr. Darling because he held a conversation with her and spoke to her as if she were not merely a maid.

“You should go,” she said, standing from her chair.

“I have one more question to ask you,” he said, still sitting.

Should she sit? What kind of question would he ask her next?

“This Grayson who went with my sister, what kind of man is he?”

Sarah was unprepared to speak about the man who had stolen her heart when she was three.

“He is nothing like his father or step-brother. Imagine growing up with them as your family—with Timothy Cavendish and my brother constantly taunting and fighting with you. Grayson is as hard as a mountain alone on the earth. Your sister fearlessly scaled that mountain and found a place that made him laugh again. He loved one thing in his life, dancing. Then Aria stepped into his arms and there was no place for anyone or anything else.”

“Dancing,” he echoed. “Aria is a dancer.”

Sarah took a step toward the bed.

“Were you in love with him?” Aria’s brother asked.

“Yes,” she told him honestly, without turning around. “That is why I am so happy that he has found happiness.”

He chuckled finally leaving his chair. “Now I know none of this is real.”

She turned to watch him walk toward the door.

He was over six feet tall, with long legs clad in black, heavy tightly woven cotton pants.

He wore a single shirt of gray unfamiliar fabric covering his broad shoulders and part of his arms. He also wore an odd type of vest with many pockets.

On his feet, he wore neither heels nor boots, but black leather shoes with white soles of more unfamiliar material.

“How do you know none of it is real?” she asked him when he reached the door.

He turned to smile at her. “Simple. No one like you exists in the real world, whatever the era.”